Let's get rid of non-free PDF advertisement

What would you think about a sign on the highway
saying “You need a Volkswagen to drive on this road. Contact your
Volkswagen dealer for a gratis test drive – Your Government”?

Situation

When it comes to software that opens PDF files, many public sector
organisations do this every day. With the pdfreaders.org campaign we have
turned the spotlight on government organisations who behave this way,
exposing how frequent such advertisements for non-free software are. With
the help of activists across Europe, we are contacting these organisations
and explain them how to improve their websites so that they respect our
freedom.

PDFreaders.org

First FSFE's volunteers created pdfreaders.org. All of the PDF readers on
pdfreaders.org are Free Software, respecting your basic four freedoms to
use, study, share and improve them. This gives you control over your
computer and helps protect your privacy.

Contacting public bodies

With the help of our Fellows and of hundreds other Free Software
activists, we have collected over 2000 bug reports (l.fsfe.org/pdfrb). FSFE has sent a letter
to all the public administrations on our list asking them to either remove
their advertising for proprietary software or at least run equal
advertising for Free Software, so that users of their websites realise that
they have a choice. Currently more than 550 public bodies changed their
websites accordingly.

Petition to remove advertisement for non-free software

Our "Petition For The Removal Of Proprietary Software Advertising On
Public Institution Websites" was signed by over 90 organisations, 60
businesses and 2690 individuals. You can see the list of the signatories at
l.fsfe.org/pdfrp!

What we want to do

We will maintain pdfreaders.org. We will continue to contact the remaining
organisations, and remind them to fix their bugs. Therefore, we will continue to
improve our documentation how to contact public bodies, as well as
information how to contact companies.

Contact institutions on your own

If you discover a page of a public institution or administration that
advertises non-free software and is not yet or does not appear as resolved on
the list, do not hesitate to contact them on your own (http://l.fsfe.org/pdfrf). For this
purpose you can use our model letter (http://l.fsfe.org/pdfrl): just change the address, the
URL, and the name. Then send it out per mail or post.

Inform us about the institutions you are contacting, and the progress
you are making. We will publish the positive results alongside with the
other reported institutions.